Music in Advertising

Why Music In Ads?

• Music is critical for creating great ads. – Delivers emotions– Makes the ad memorable and provide a drumbeat

for the video editing. – It may contribute to increase the viewer’s general

awareness of the message – Emphasize certain aspects of this message – Even to create a more distinct brand profile

Six Ways Music Can Contribute

• 1) Entertainment• 2) Structure/continuity• 3) Memorability• 4) Lyrical Language • 5) Targeting• 6) Authority Establishment

Entertainment

• Good music can contribute to the effectiveness of an advertisement merely by making it more attractive.

• A good ad engages the attention of an audience, and the most straightforward way of achieving this is to create a claim which is entertaining.

• Historically music served to candy coat a spoken narrative sales pitch. Music served to engage listeners' attention and render the advertisement less of an unwanted intrusion.

• Moreover, the music does not necessarily manifest any special affinity with a particular product or service in order to play an effective and useful function.

Structure & Continuity

• Perhaps the most important structural role for music is in tying together a sequence of visual images and/or a series of dramatic episodes etc. This is the function of continuity.

• Thus, advertising music can be employed as simply an uninterrrupted background -- what has been dubbed "gravy train”—to mediate between disjointed images.

• A second structural function is the use of music to heighten or emphasize dramatic moments or episodes.

Memorability

• Consumers are known to favor products which elicit some degree of recognition or familiarity -- even if it is merely the product's name.

• Music tends to linger in the listener's mind. Surprisingly, such musical lingering may occur even when the mind is an unwilling host.

Lyrical Language

• Language utterances can sound much less naive or self-indulgent when coupled up with a musical phrase rather than simply spoken.– An individual can respectably sing things which would sound

utterly trite if said.• Even if it is emotional, poetic language is more powerful than

factual, logical language• National brand advertisers tend to favor poetic ads over

logical ads, since specific/logical/factual distinctions between competing products often tend to be weak. Minor product differences may often be amplified through the use of music.

Lyrical Language Continued• Mixtures of speech and song provide advertisers with opportunities for both

logical, factual appeals and emotive, poetic appeals. It is easy to recognize which passages of an ad copy are intended to be spoken and which passages are intended to be sung: – Sung:

We'll take you back to all the friends and places that you know. We'll take you back, we'll take you to the land of long ago. With CP Air you'll have the journey of a life-time. CP Air Holidays.

Spoken: Planning a trip to Germany? Plan with CP Air Holidays. They offer low fares and a choice of three charter-flight destinations: Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, or Munich. You'll fly closer to where you want to go, with traditional CP Air service all the way. Ask your travel agent about CP Air Holidays charter flights to Germany. They'll take you back.

Sung: With CP Air you'll have the journey of a life-time. CP Air Holidays. We'll take you back.

Targeting• Musical styles have long been identified with various social and

demographic groups. Musical style might therefore assist in targeting a specific market. The style may function as a socioeconomic identifier -- a device for addressing a specific audience.

Targeting Example• Havey Krotz's Ford in Listowel, Ontario, is a large, successful

rural automobile dealership which, because of its remote geographical location, relies heavily on mass media advertising.

• The musical style of most of Krotz's radio and television spots can be characterized as country and western. One might suggest that the ad people are designing their commercials to appease the client rather than to appeal to the consumer. But this explanation is too cynical.

• The Ford Motor Company's own marketing research indicates that pickup truck buyers are proportionally more likely to like C&W music than the population as a whole.